


Why Don’t You And I Combine

by crossingwinter



Series: Let's Get Together [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Heart Attacks, Porn, Reylo Children, Vaguely Planned Sequel, Wedding, oh i almost forgot to tag, re-established relationship, that’s what happens in each of the chapters there you’ve read the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-07 13:02:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: Rey’s phone rings while she’s at the farmer’s market.  She lets it ring.  They have a line and it’s only a few hours, and the girls are at school and it’s just her today, so she doesn’t have enough hands.  Rose and Finn and Poe are helping Ben move furniture out of his apartment and into the house.  They’re probably calling about something silly, or Ben’s calling to say he’s fully moved in and he’s lying in their bed—possibly with his hand on his cock—and that he’s thinking of her.In which life continues, grows, and Rey and Ben continue to rebuild their relationship.A sequel toLet’s Get Together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ever-so-reylo (Ever_So_Reylo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ever_So_Reylo/gifts).



> For ever-so-reylo, who beta’d [a bajillion pieces of porn for me last month](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17622032/chapters/41546528) and whom I’ve been meaning to write this for basically since I posted the first one.
> 
> I made a headcanon post after posting [_Let’s Get Together_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15315285). This doesn’t exactly contain new info if you’ve read it—just more fleshed out and fic formatted. It doesn’t cover all of the headcanons by any means—just the ones I wanted to fit into this. Also some of them shifted around for reasons.

Rey’s phone rings while she’s at the farmer’s market.  She lets it ring. They have a line and it’s only a few hours, and the girls are at school and it’s just her today, so she doesn’t have enough hands.  Rose and Finn and Poe are helping Ben move furniture out of his apartment and into the house. They’re probably calling about something silly, or Ben’s calling to say he’s fully moved in and he’s lying in their bed—possibly with his hand on his cock—and that he’s thinking of her.

Her phone rings again a few minutes later.  

It buzzes with several text messages.  

“Sorry,” Rey says when it’s Maz’s turn to pay.  “They won’t give me a moment’s peace if I don’t—”

There are two little lines of text message visible on the notification.

_We’re taking him to the hospital._

_It’ll be ok._

She frowns.

What?

She unlocks the phone and clicks into the group thread she shares with Finn, Poe, and Rose.

Finn, Poe, Rose  
  
Finn  
Ben collapsed. He’s breathing, but he’s not conscious. We’re taking him to the hospital.  
  
Finn  
It’ll be ok.   
  


The phone slips out of her hand and she leans hard against the back of her blue pickup truck, her hand clutching the fading paint.

“Is everything all right?” Maz asks her sharply, distantly.  Her voice is very distant. And Rey’s breathing is so very loud in her own chest.  Shallow. She’s hyperventilating. “Rey?”

“I need to get to the hospital,” she thinks she says.  Or maybe it’s just “Ben.” But she finds herself sitting in the bed of the truck while Maz and a few others load it up with the rest of her veggies.  She’s drinking water from someone else’s water bottle and her phone is sitting loosely in her hand. It starts to ring again and Rey picks up when she sees Finn’s face on the screen.

“What’s going on?” she asks and her voice is hollow.

“They’ve got him.  We’re in the waiting room,” Finn says quickly.  

“Ok,” Rey says.  “I’m going to drive over in a few—”

“Are you ok?” Finn asks, his voice sharp.  

“I’m—”

Very much not ok.  Ben’s in the hospital.  Ben collapsed on the day he was supposed to move into her house, the day that was supposed to be a celebration, a _we’re doing this_ , a _we’ve made it through so much_ , a _we both think this is right,_ a _you’re part of my future and our past is our past but this—this is—this is—_

“Rey, babe.”  Finn is panicking in her ear and that’s when she realizes she’s sobbing.  Not crying quietly the way she usually does, leaking tears out of the corner of her eyes—full on chest sobbing.  “I’m going to come get you. Rose will take care of the stand.”

“The girls,” Rey chokes out.  They’ll be in school until three pm, and they have Hebrew school this afternoon.  It’s Tuesday. Ben wanted to move on a Tuesday because the traffic would be less bad and then they could settle right into a life routine without having the weekend because he’d thought that would be a good idea and now he’s in the hospital.

“We’ll take care of them,” Finn says.  “I’m going to come get you and then we’ll get you to the hospital and you’ll see him before you know it.  It’s going to be ok.”

She keeps muttering that to herself as she sits there in the truck bed for the next half hour.  Rose and Finn arrive, and Finn steers her into the front of his car while Rose takes over the farm stand, even though the peak hours have passed.

 _It’ll be ok._  She stares out the window at the passing cars.  It’s beautiful out today. Not too hot, clear skies, the sort of day that Ben would roll all his windows down for as he commuted into the city for work.  If he had work today. If he weren’t moving into her house today. If he weren’t collapsing.

“Stop it,” Finn says sharply.

“Stop?”

“You’re picking at your hands.  Stop it.”

He reaches into the console in the middle of the front seat and chucks some lotion at her.  She rubs it into her hands as a way to keep them from peeling at the dry skin by her nails.

“Do the girls know?” she asks.

“No.  We didn’t want to phone in until we’d talked to you.”

“Does Leia know?”

“Don’t have her number.”

Rey takes a deep breath and pulls out her phone again, opening up her messages app.  The most recent text is from Finn; the next most recent is from Ben. _The next time I see you, we’ll be living together again.  Have a lovely day at the market._  He’d included several eggplant emojis as a joke because he knows that she was bringing eggplants that day to sell.  The simple fact that he knew that eggplant emojis _were_ a joke still catches her off guard sometimes.

It makes her start to cry again.

No, she can’t text Leia just yet.  She can’t. She’ll wait until she knows—she knows—

She gets out of the car and Finn steers her into the hospital.  He does the talking at the information desk because Rey’s head is still spinning a little too hard.

“And what’s your relation?” the woman at the desk asks Rey, not unkindly.

“He’s my—” she freezes.  Not her husband, not yet.  They’ve danced around the topic before, but they had never actively broached it, not even in couple’s therapy.  Boyfriend doesn’t fit, though. He’s _Ben_.  “My ex-husband.”

The woman behind the desk gives her a look.  “We can only give out information to a spouse or a parent or a child,” she says carefully.  

“We have two daughters,” Rey hears herself saying.  “They’re in school.”

“Do you have contact information for his parents?”

Rey blinks back tears.  “You can’t tell me?” she asks him.

“Not legally, no,” the woman replies gently.  Rey feels dizzy and Finn grabs her arm.

“Can we get her some water?” Finn asks the woman, who rounds the desk and helps Finn take Rey to a chair where she sits down, focusing on her breathing.  She’d started doing that—breathing more. The therapist that their couple’s therapist had recommended had gotten her into it. She’s breathing now. She’s going to keep breathing.  Just like Ben. If she keeps breathing, so will Ben.

A paper cup of water is pressed into her hand.  She drinks it. She takes another sip. Then she digs her phone out of her pocket and gives the nice woman Leia’s contact information.  

“Once we’ve spoken to her, she’ll be able to let you know what’s going on,” the woman says before disappearing.

It’s when she’s gone again that Rey lets herself start to cry again.

 

-

 

“Of course I’m flying down,” Leia says at once when she calls Rey.  “He’s had a heart attack.”

“Is he—” Rey starts but Leia continues.  

“I told them to treat you as my proxy.  They should tell you anything at this point.”

“I’m not sure that’s how that—”

“And they’re hoping he’ll be awake soon.”

Rey swallows.

“I’ll be there soon, sweetheart.  Just as soon as I can. Kiss the girls for me.”

The girls.  

Poe is on his way to take the girls to Hebrew school, and they still don’t know what’s happening with Ben.  She looks at Finn, who’s still sitting with her. “Should we tell them? Or will that worry them needlessly?”

“Maybe not the full details,” he suggests.  “Maybe just that Ben’s not feeling great. And hopefully we’ll know more by the time they’re done at the synagogue.”

Rey nods and she sees Finn text Poe.  She takes another sip of her water. The paper cup is almost empty, now, and she folds it between her fingers.  “Can we walk around? Just the room. I can’t stand just sitting here.” _I hate waiting._

Finn’s on his feet immediately, looping his arm through Rey’s and the two of them circle the waiting room.

It feels like hours.

For all Rey knows, it could just be twenty minutes.

What matters, though, is that a woman in pink scrubs comes out and says, “Rey Johnson?”  Rey whirls around and stares at her. “You can come back and see him now.”

She practically sags with relief and she’s walking on air as she makes her way through the hospital, following the—nurse? Doctor? She doesn’t know—to a room with a nice wide window and Ben sitting up in his bed, strapped to a heart monitor that’s beeping regularly.

“Hey,” he says a little shakily.

“We need to get married,” Rey says as she crosses the room and sits down next to him on the bed, tugging him to her, clinging to him.  His eyes are bugging out of his head at her words, his mouth is slightly open in surprise, but she ignores that. _He’s alive.  He’s ok. He’s conscious._

“Because they wouldn’t tell me anything.”  And Ben laughs.

Rey pinches him.  “I’m _serious_ ,” and she can hear the tears in her own voice.  “They wouldn’t tell me anything. Ben—I didn’t know—”

“Hey, hey, hey,” and he pulls her against his chest, wraps his arms around her.  Her ear is pressed to his heart and she can hear it thunking, right in time with the beeping of the heart monitor.  “I’m ok. It’s ok.”

“You had a heart attack.  It’s not ok.”

“Yeah, but you’re here, and I’m here, so it’s a little bit ok.”

She hates it when he does that—stripping away the bullshit until something is so simple that she can’t argue with it.  She hates it, and she loves it too.

They sit like that for a long time, her head against his chest, his arms around her.  Rey breathes, and Ben breathes, and if it weren’t for the heart monitor and the hospital gown, things would be almost normal.

 

-

 

Rey gets home that night and the house is a mess.  They hadn’t finished moving Ben’s things in, and the bed frame that she and Ben had agreed was better than hers and should come with him from his apartment was in the living room, where it looked as though it had been shoved out of necessity.  Had he collapsed carrying that bed?

Rey doesn’t want to think about it, but she can’t stop thinking about it.

“It’s not your fault,” Finn tells her firmly as they cook dinner.  She has trouble eating though. She never has trouble eating.

The girls are quiet.  They’d wanted to go see him, but by the time they’d been done with Hebrew school, it was too late in the evening.  “I don’t want them to see me like this,” Ben had said quietly as Rey had talked to Poe on the phone. “If I can help it.”  The hospital was keeping him overnight, but he’d hopefully be released the next day if everything seemed to be bouncing back properly.  Ben was in good spirits. His brush with death clearly had upset him less than it had upset Rey. He’d been joking the whole time about the dietary changes that the doctor was suggesting, making comments about how Rey grows the best vegetables and positively bragging about her farm while the doctor was trying to get him to listen.

“You’re worse than Breha,” she muttered to him after the doctor had left the room.

“Infinitely,” he replied with a crooked smile.  “I’m incorrigible,” and he leaned forward to kiss her and even if he was being unbelievably annoying, she would not deny him a kiss.  She couldn’t. Not when she’d been so afraid he’d—

“Should we bring the bed frame up?” Finn asks her quietly, nodding to it.

“Was that what did it?” she asks him.  

“He’d been looking a little out of it for a while, but yeah.  That’s what we were moving in,” Finn replies quietly.

 _I want to burn it,_ Rey thinks angrily as she stares at it.  

Or fuck him to hell and back triumphantly on top of it.  

_He’s all right, it will be all right._

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

Between the four of them, she, Finn, Poe, and Rose bring the frame up to the bedroom that had once been Finn’s, Poe’s, and Rose’s.  It’s largely empty, since the other three had abandoned it for the extension they had spent the past few months building earlier that week—empty except for a few boxes that they’d managed to unload from the U-haul before Ben’s heart attack, and they settle the bed frame under the window.  Rey stares at it for a long moment before she turns to them. “Thanks. We’ll move the mattress when Ben’s here.” As far as she’s aware, the king mattress is still in the U-haul, and Rey’s is a double—one of the many reasons that she and Ben hadn’t done anything in her bed since he’d moved.

The other three nod and retreat—though not before Finn squeezes Rey’s hand.

Then she returns to her smaller bedroom, puts on her PJs, and climbs onto her bed, grabbing the book she’d been reading and hoping it’ll make her mind stop spinning.

He’d smiled at her in that hospital bed, and had looked pale.  His hair—which was already starting to salt and pepper, did it seem whiter?  Or was that just her imagination? Didn’t people’s hair sometimes go white with shock?  Surely that wasn’t going to happen to Ben.

She almost misses the faint knock on the door.  “Come in?” And there’s Padme, her eyes bright red because she’s clearly been crying.  “Baby,” Rey says spreading her arms and Padme scurries across the room and buries her face in Rey’s stomach, trembling and shaking.  “He’s all right. I promise he’s all right.”

Padme just nods and Rey strokes her hair.  She has such lovely soft hair. Ben’s hair.  “Your bubbe’s flying down tomorrow morning. She’ll be staying with us.  And he’ll be home tomorrow.”

“He was supposed to be home today,” Padme mumbles into Rey’s stomach and it’s all Rey can do to keep from crying herself now.  

“I know, sweetheart.  And he’s unhappy he can’t be.”

“What if he doesn’t come home tomorrow?” she asks.

“Then he’ll be home the day after.  I can’t fathom that mundane things like doors and walls would stop him from trying to come home.”  She continues stroking up and down Padme’s spine. “Do you want to sleep in here with me tonight, honey?”

Padme nods, and Rey shifts her around so that she’s under the blanket, snuggling against Rey’s side.  

It’s not long before her daughter has cried herself to sleep.

Rey, though, doesn’t sleep for a long while.  The sky is starting to get light again before she drifts off, exhausted.

 

-

 

“Will you let us know when he’s out?” Padme asks before she gets on the school bus.  

“Yes,” Rey promises.  “I’ll call the office.”

“You could text,” Breha suggests.

“You’re not allowed to use your phone during school.”

Breha rolls her eyes.  “Yeah, but this is an emergency.”

“It’s not an emergency.  The emergency was yesterday when he was being brought to the hospital.”

“When you didn’t text us,” Breha points out.

Rey gives her a look and turns back to Padme.  “I’ll let the office know.”

She hugs both girls, and gives Padme an extra kiss before she climbs on the bus.  Then she grabs Breha’s arm. “I know you’re worried too,” she says quietly and the brave face Breha had put on begins to fade.  “Just—look out for her, ok?”

Breha nods as though she has just been assigned a holy duty and climbs up onto the bus after her sister.

Rey takes a deep breath, watching the bus go.  Behind her, Finn and Rose are out in the fields.  Poe is bringing boxes into the house from the back of the U-haul.  They need to return it in a few hours. “Need help with the mattress?” she asks.

“Please,” he replies, and a moment later, the two of them are bringing it up the stairs, into the master bedroom, easing it gently onto the bed frame.  

“I’ll make it later,” Rey sighs.  She has to strip her own bed so that Leia can stay in it tonight, and then head to the hospital.  Leia’s flight lands in forty minutes, but she’d texted from the airport in New York saying that she would be going straight to the hospital, and not to worry about her.

 _I worry about everyone,_ Rey thinks.  Especially the little family she’d thought—she’d—

“No,” she tells herself aloud, firmly.  She hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep, but the simple fact of not having gotten any communications from the hospital—that he was having another heart attack, that he’d died, that he had cancer, that he had a cough—had helped calm her nerves right down.  She does not need to go back and make it worse again.

She spends the next hour doing chores before getting in her car and driving to the hospital.  There’s some traffic, and by the time she makes her way into Ben’s hospital room, Leia is already there, sitting in the chair next to him, talking quietly.

“Rey,” Leia says getting to her feet at once and giving Rey a rib-cracking hug.  

“I’m glad to see you,” Rey says, because it’s the truth.  She’s always glad to see Leia. Leia makes her feel better, somehow.  Always. Like the simple fact of her motherhood to Ben got extended to Rey—quite the opposite of what Rey had been led to believe was the truth about mothers-in-law.

“Is he being a brat?  He was being a brat yesterday.”  Leia chuckles at the question.

“He wants to get out of this damn bed,” Ben mutters.

“He should have his breakfast, but is too much of a snob to eat the hospital food,” Leia says, ignoring her son.  “They have a few more tests to run, and then they’ll be done with him, I think.”

It was the truth.  By early afternoon, Ben was discharged, which markedly improved his spirits.  He sat in the front seat of Rey’s truck, his hand in hers, while he texted—

“You shouldn’t text them while they’re at school,” Rey berates him when she sees the notification that he’d texted the group thread they share with their daughters flash across her phone where it’s resting on the dashboard.

“I just had a heart attack, let me live a little,” he replies.

Almost immediately, Padme’s replying with a string of hearts and some text that gets hidden from Rey’s lock screen.

Ben shoots off another reply.

“Not to be completely delinquent,” Leia says from the second seat, “But what are your thoughts on my taking the girls around town tomorrow.  I’d love to do some sightseeing.”

“Go for it,” Ben says before Rey can even consider and she’s about to say _no, they should be in school,_ when she remembers Padme’s red eyes from the night before, and the shuddering way she’d sobbed and snuggled into Rey’s side.

“Yeah, they don’t get to see you nearly enough,” Rey says, and Leia makes a contented noise.

 

-

 

Ben spends most of the afternoon huffing at Rey as she unpacks.

“The doctor said bedrest,” she snaps at him every time he makes to move.

“And I should be helping you.  It’s my shit.”

“In our house,” Rey replies.  He has so many dress shirts. It’s a good thing she doesn’t wear dresses very frequently because that means there’s enough space in the closet to hang them in, but who needs this many dress shirts?

“Did you mean it?” he asks her after she flattens the box and sticks it out in the hallway.

“Mean what?”

“About wanting to get married again.”

She goes very still and looks over her shoulder at him.  He’s got such a Ben expression on his face, determined and almost brutally blunt and blazingly in love and her throat goes a little dry.

“I’d like to.  It’s a little too late for the hospital, but—”

And he’s up off the bed before Rey can even protest that he’s not supposed to move and he’s kissing her so deeply that her heart is pounding an uneven tattoo in her chest.  

“But yes,” she finishes against his mouth.  “Yes. Again. Sometime. That’s why we’re doing this, isn’t it?”

He just keeps kissing her, and kissing her.  He steers her back to the bed and pushes her down onto it and for one horrible moment, she thinks she’s going to have to tell him that sex is absolutely off the table because he can’t put that much strain on his heart two days after a heart attack, but luckily she doesn’t have to.  He wraps his arms around her and pulls her to his chest and kisses the top of her head, holding her almost exactly the way he had in that hospital bed.

They lie there like that for a long while.  Rey wonders if Ben’s going to drift off to sleep—it turns out he had slept no better than she had in the hospital—but after a while, he says, “That’s you talking about the future.  Not looking back and getting lost in the weeds.”

Rey nods against his chest.

“And all I had to do was nearly die.”

“Shut up,” she mumbles and he pulls her lips up to his and kisses her.

“I love you,” he tells her firmly.  “I love everything about you, even when it hurt.  Never stopped. But I love looking at our future. I love that we have a future.”  He rests her hand on his heart and her eyes get very bright as she looks at him.

“You could have died,” she whispers.  

“I know,” he replies.

“You could have died, and you’re making jokes about it.”

“Because I didn’t die,” he tells her.  “Because I don’t want to think about it, ok?  It was terrifying, the idea that I wouldn’t get to see Padme ever again, that I wouldn’t get to see you, or kiss you, or—or have a future with you.”  And now his eyes are bright with tears and Rey kisses him as hard as she can, tears dripping down her own face. “But I’m alive, ok? So let’s not dwell on the almost not part.  I’d rather think about a future with you.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” he says, and his breath is hot against her neck, his hands already making their way up the front of her shirt to slip under her bra.  “Live a little.”

“The doctor said—”

“The doctor said not to overexert myself.  This isn’t going to be overexerting.”

“Ben, not _yet_.”

He’s not allowed to go on runs yet, he’s not allowed to help move the furniture around, he’s only allowed to do half-days at work and _only_ if the work is administrative and not likely to get his blood pressure up.  The doctors say he is recovering quite well, but Rey doesn’t want to risk anything.  Even if—

She’s woken up with him hard at her back four times in the past week, and no matter what she tells herself, she can’t _not_ admit to a small voice in her head that makes her want to act like it had never happened and turn around and just…go for it.  That’s why he moved in, that’s why they moved his big king-sized bed into the bedroom to begin with—so she and Ben could live a little.

“You think I can’t handle a little canoodling?” He is rolling her nipple between his fingers, and she feels him half-hard already.

“No, I really don’t think you can.  People have heart attacks and die during sex, Ben.”  

“I really can’t think of a better way to go,” he retorts cheekily.

It’s the cheekiness more than anything else that makes her pull away.  “And what about me? I’ll be traumatized _and_ I’ll have lost you,” she retorts hotly.  

“Yeah, but I’ll be dead, so no use worrying about that.”

She glares at him, and his face gets serious, and he pulls her back towards his chest.  “You are my heart,” he tells her. “So long as you’re strong, I’m strong.”

And Rey bursts out laughing.  “That’s a _line_ , you must really be desperate.”

“I had plans, Rey,” he complains.  “Of things we were going to do in this bed—in this house.  I had _plans_.”

“Didn’t take you for a quitter,” Rey says, getting up off the bed.  “You really giving up on all your plans just because you have to wait a little while longer?”

“I’ve had my fill of waiting for you.”

The words slip out—she knows they do.  She and Ben both share an unfortunate habit of just saying whatever they want.  It’s come up multiple times in their therapy sessions with Dopheld, sitting there looking between them as they dig up all their pain and try to let it go.  She’s not surprised that Ben would say this, or that he’d freeze immediately after saying it, watching her closely, waiting for her to shut down, to look away, to feel that same crushing guilt wash over her that has for months, ever since she walked back into his life.

She takes a deep shuddering breath.  

“Maybe, but I like to think I was worth the wait.”

She hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he exhales it slowly, shakily.  “Definitely worth the wait,” he breathes.

“So I have a good track record,” she says and gives him a quick peck on the lips before climbing out of bed.

She feels…all right?

That’s new.

Maybe it will come crashing over her again in a few minutes, when she’s not lying there with Ben, worried he’s going to die.

Or maybe…

_That’s you talking about the future.  Not looking back and getting lost in the weeds._

Maybe the past started mattering less when she—

“Ben?”

“Yeah?” he responds a little too quickly, a little too lightly.

She turns to face him.  “I love you.”

 

-

 

“I’d give her two, three months before she starts nagging us about getting married again,” Ben tells Rey as they stand by the baggage claim.  “So please, don’t mention anything about it unless you want that window to completely evaporate.”

Rey grins up at him but he’s looking at his phone, a slight crease between his brows.

“Work?” Rey asks him.

“Yes,” he says, “The Hutt case is—”

“Away,” Rey says and she plucks his phone from between his fingers.

“Rey,” he growls.

“Away.  You’re off the clock.”

“I’m going stir crazy,” he grumbles.  “Honestly—aren’t I supposed to be getting back to a normal routine?”

“If you’re making that face during your time off from work, I don’t think it should be part of your normal routine,” Rey shrugs, pocketing his phone.  He has a doctor’s appointment later this week, where—they both hope—the doctor will tell him he’s allowed short jogs again, and longer working hours, and…

“Aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes!” Leia says.

“You were here last week, mom,” Ben says, but he bends to give her a hug.  Rey wonders—not for the first time—just how tall their girls are going to be.

“I know.  I met with the realtor and—”

“So you’re selling?” Ben asks sharply.

“I told you I was moving down here,” she says.  “I like the sunshine and being near the girls.”

“Yeah, but selling the apartment—”

“What—are you planning on moving back into it?” She reaches up and pats his cheek.  “Yes, I know, your childhood home. But if no one’s living there, I’d really prefer not to have to pay New York City taxes, thank you very much.  Those are my bags.” She nods to them and Ben makes to grab them and—

“No, I’ve got it,” Rey says.

“They’re roll-aboards, Rey,” Ben snaps.

“And I’ve got them.”

She heaves them off the carousel and extends the handles before pushing them towards Ben.  He does not look pleased.

“It’s only a little while longer,” Leia says.  “I don’t want you dying on me. I’ve already lost your father, but I was always going to outlive him.  You, though…”

“In case I ever forget you’re a Jewish grandmother,” Ben mutters under his breath, and Rey grins up at him.  He still looks like a stormcloud though. _Well, what does he expect.  He had a heart attack. I’m not risking losing him again.  Not right when things are starting to feel—_

Feel the way they should.  Ben’s here, Leia’s moving here, the girls are together, the farm is doing well…

Things are going well.  So if Ben gets pouty because she won’t let him heave suitcases, he’ll just have to deal with it.

 

-

 

She doesn’t hear from Ben all afternoon after his doctor’s appointment.  He doesn’t text her, he doesn’t call her. He’d gone straight from the appointment into work, where he’s probably in meetings all day about the Hutt case.

Rey does her best not to wonder after him.  She has a feeling, down in her gut, that he’s going to come home angry, and bitter, and that the doctor will have told him he needs to rest a little bit more.   _That has to be it,_ she thinks as she and Finn take a break from work to have some lemonade.   _He’d send me ninety eggplant emojis if we could have sex again._

She sighs, and takes her frustration out on the veggies.

Her phone buzzes once towards the end of the day, just before the girls are due to arrive home on the school bus.  

**Ben:** I’ll probably be late today.  If I don’t murder Rotta Tiure over this fucking acquisition, please know that it was a very short miss.  
  


Rey frowns.

Yeah, they definitely can’t have sex yet.

Ben doesn’t make it home until past nine, at which point the girls are finishing their homework and getting ready for bed.  

“How was your day?” Rey asks him and once again, his face looks like a mask of bitterness.  

He just shakes his head.  

Rey showers, he reads to the girls, and when she comes back into the bedroom, Ben is sitting on the bed, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m guessing the doctor said you still needed time,” she states.

He nods.  “Probably another week, he suggested.  Something about wanting to be cautious.”

“So staying at work until nine is—”

“Don’t,” Ben cuts her off, rubbing his hands over his face.  “Please, just don’t.”

She crawls across the bed, still wrapped in her towel and presses her lips to his neck.  “Soon,” she says. “It won’t be long now.” She rubs her fingers down his arm. “It won’t be—”

And he cuts her off with a kiss, his hands tugging at her towel so that it falls away and she’s protesting, “Ben—come on—I know you’re frustrated but—” but he’s ignoring her completely.  He’s kissing his way down her stomach, until his hands are spreading her thighs and she can feel his breath, hot against her sex.

“Please,” he whispers.  “Just this. Nothing else.  Please.” He looks almost wild.

_He’s losing his mind,_ she thinks and—knowing she’s going to regret this and praying that he doesn’t actually have another heart attack, she shifts her hips, widening her legs and he buries his face between her thighs.

He groans into her cunt when his tongue connects with her skin and Rey hisses “ _Quiet_ ,” at him.

He looks up.  “What?”

“The girls are still awake.”

A look  of derision crosses his face.  “Look, I can be quiet. Can _you_ be quiet?”

Rey glares at him because they both know from experience that Ben can be absolutely silent during sex and Rey...struggles with that.

She throws her forearm over her face, biting it lightly as Ben starts to lick again and he’s so good at this—so good.  He has her heart racing within seconds with the way that he’s curling his tongue around her clit, the way that his hands go from her thighs, to her hips, before settling on her ass, massaging the muscles there.

Rey does her best not to groan, not to moan, not to call his name.  The girls are just down the hall, and sure—they both know what sex is, have both definitely heard Finn and Poe and Rose before.  But it’s different when it’s her kids and her—Ben. Her Ben.

Ben’s in her house, in her bed, and he’s hers again.  Alive, and hers, and—and—

She comes quickly.  He’s not trying to tease her, he’s trying to overwhelm her and he succeeds and she can’t help but cry out as her body arches, as her heart sings.  She reaches down to pull his lips back up her body until she can kiss him, and she holds him as close as she can while her heart normalizes again.

He is hard against her hip but he doesn’t try to push for more friction.  If anything, he seems calmer. Calmer now than he’s seemed in weeks as he kisses her lazily.

“You shouldn’t have to wait for me,” he says.  “And I don’t want to wait for you.”

“Ben,” Rey begins but he kisses her again and he still tastes like her.

“It’s good for my heart.”

She snorts.  “That’s a line.”

“It’s the truth,” he says seriously.  “I feel calm now. Calmer than I have in a while.”

He kisses her once more and then adjusts them so that his erection isn’t touching her at all.  He takes a few, steadying breaths and rubs his nose along her jawline before closing his eyes and trying to sleep.

 

-

 

Ben, Finn, Poe, Rose  
  
Ben  
Can you take the girls out tonight?  Movie? Ice cream? Anything?

The text comes through on the group thread with Poe, Finn, and Rose and Rey’s heart throbs in her chest.  

Finn’s reply is immediate:

Ben, Finn, Poe, Rose  
  
Finn  
🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆

Ben’s response is so fast Rey suspects he’d been expecting it.  He’d have been a fool not to.

Ben, Finn, Poe, Rose  
  
Ben  
Yes.  
Please take them out tonight.  
Thank you in advance.  
Rose  
I think he’s lawyering us.  Is this lawyering—assuming that we agree?  
Poe  
The poor man had a heart attack and gets to have sex again, please leave him alone.  
Finn  
Also ice cream.  
Rose  
I’m lactose intolerant.  
Finn  
Sorbet.  
Rose  
Now we're talking.

Rey changes the text window to her private messages with Ben.

 

**Rey:** Love you  
  
**Ben:** Love you too  
  
**Ben:** And god I hope I’m not overcommitting when I say that I had plans and it’s time to start acting on them.  
  


Rey considers for a moment, then smiles as she types.

 

Rey: Fuck me so hard we break that fucking bed frame and need to get a new one.  
  
**Ben:** As my lady commands  
  


 

-

 

The house is empty by the time that Rey hears Ben’s car pull into the driveway.  With a wink from Finn and only a moderate amount of teasing, Finn, Poe, and Rose take the girls away for a _surprise uncles and aunt night._

She smiles to herself as she peeks out of the window of the bedroom.  He gets out of the car quickly and he loosens his tie as he makes his way to the front door.  

“Rey?” she hears him call as he closes the door behind him.

“Upstairs,” Rey calls.  She’s smiling. Smiling and so very excited.  

He’s been giving her head regularly now, and that’s great—she’ll never complain about that—but it’s not the same as holding him close, feeling him pushing deep inside her, smooth and thick and hot.  She misses feeling his chest against her—whether her front or her back, she doesn’t really care, just being able to feel his heart beating against her skin. She misses that.

His footsteps are heavy on the stairs and he stops dead in his tracks when he pushes open the bedroom door and sees her lying in the middle of their bed, already naked, her legs spread a little bit, one hand lightly toying with a nipple.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” she tells him, and he gives her such a wolfish grin.

“Am I?”

“Yes, I’d say so,” and she pushes herself forward onto her knees, holding out a hand for him to take.  She pulls him to the edge of the bed and then begins unbuttoning his shirt while he unbuckles his belt.  He drops his pants, his shirt joins it on the floor and he works on toeing off his shoes and socks while Rey tugs his undershirt up and over his head, her lips kissing whatever parts of him they can reach at any given moment.

When they’ve fully stripped him down, he pushes her onto the mattress and stretches himself over her, breathing deeply as he runs his lips along her collar bones, along her neck.  

“Break the bed frame?” he asks her.  “You’re sure?”

“You can fuck me sweet and slow later,” she tells him.  “If I don’t hear this thing creak at least once—”

But he doesn’t let her finish because a moment later he’s inside her so deep she can feel him nudging against her cervix.  His hands are on her legs, tilting them up, guiding them until her ankles are on his shoulders.

“Hold onto me,” he growls, and her hands come to his neck and a moment later he’s moving.

She forgets how strong Ben is sometimes.  He looks like a brick wall, but he rarely actually does anything more physical than jog in the mornings before work.  He mentions going to the gym at lunch, but Rey never sees that so she doesn’t really believe it.

But she believes it when the bed slams against the back wall from the force of his thrust and Rey lets out a cry of surprise because she was not expecting that.  “Careful,” she tells him.

“No,” he growls and is it the tone of his voice or the way his cock is sliding inside her that makes her suddenly feel light?  “No. Not careful. Loud, and breaking everything except you.”

The house is empty except for the two of them and Rey doesn’t bother stifling a cry the next time he thrusts and it sends pleasure shooting up through her.  She loves this position, loves how the head of his cock presses deep into her by way of rubbing along her g-spot. She loves how tight she feels around him, how he seems to consume her because he’s all she can think about as her hands scrabble at his back, as her head brushes against the pillow, as the headboard of the bed bumps again and again against the wall behind her, the perfect rhythm to accompany their grunts and groans and cries.

Rey isn’t even aware of the buildup to her orgasm—it just hits her hard as she’s moaning Ben’s name.  One moment she’s moaning and the next it turns into a strangled groan as her torso curls her inwards towards herself, as her muscles pull her towards him and her whole body feels light and glowy.  

Her legs slip off his shoulders and the pressure changes.  He slows down briefly, watching her face, his eyes burning through the half-light of the evening.  “I’m not done,” he tells her.

“I should hope not.  You had plans.”

“I did have plans.”

“Don’t let me get in your way.”  

He grins down at her and a moment later he’s gone from inside her.  She lets out a whine of protest when he pulls away from her, but it goes away when his hands find her hips and he turns her over so that her ass is in the air.  

“I’m going to fuck your ass so hard sometime very soon,” he tells her, rubbing a finger along her slit and bringing some of her juices up to coat that hole.  “So very soon. Not tonight.” She whimpers. It feels good just to have him rubbing there, pressing just lightly enough that the memory of what it feels like to have him inside her bubbles up to the front of her mind as he toys with her.  “Very soon.”

He bites her shoulder as he pulls her to her knees, lines up, and presses into her again and Rey sighs as he begins to fuck her again.  His hands are still on her hips and his grip is strong and Rey lets her head drop down to the pillow. She can see him out of the corner of her eye—tall and looming and increasingly in shadow as night falls.  His salt-and-pepper hair is dark, his muscles are rippling. It’s like no time has passed at all—it’s like they’re young, or maybe like they’re old. This is them, and she hopes she never has to live another day where Ben won’t or can’t fuck her into the mattress.

He’s so beautiful, his head drooping forward as he watches himself sliding in and out of her.  His hair is falling into his face, there’s sweat dripping down his chest. Every time his balls hit her clit and she feels herself tighten around him, he grunts.  She whimpers. He groans. She sighs. The bed continues to rock back against the wall underneath them.

When Ben does come, he doesn’t come silently the way he does so frequently.  “Fuck, Rey—I love you,” he groans as he spills into her, collapsing forward and crushing her into the mattress with his full weight.  He’s hot, and sweaty, and there’s his heart, beating nice and strongly, right against her back. She reaches a hand back and rubs the side of his face a little awkwardly before deciding his hair will be better.  It’s damp with sweat too.

He’s kissing the side of her face, her neck, her ear.  His hands are trailing up and down her sides as slowly, he softens within her.  

“I like the way you’ve planned things,” Rey whispers to him after a few minutes of just lying there, their hands drifting over one another.  He rolls off her at last and tugs her to his chest and she kisses the skin just above his heart.

“Worth the wait,” he whispers to her and she lets herself zone out to the gentle thrumming of his heartbeat.


	3. Chapter 3

“I can’t wear this,” Rey says.

“You think it has bad luck?” Ben responds.  The ring is bright, and the diamond gleams in the center of the white gold band.  It still fits Rey perfectly.

“I’ll lose it hoeing or something,” Rey replies before giving Ben a sharp look because he’s grinning.  “Shut up.”

“I don’t think you’ll lose it,” he tells her, kissing her just under the ear.  “But if you think it’s got bad luck, that’s a good enough—”

“No,” she says.  “I don’t think it’s bad luck.”  The ring had belonged to Padme’s namesake, and Ben had put it on her finger on a rainy night a million years ago, and swung her around and kissed her breathless.  Now they’re standing in the sunshine. It’s a Sunday morning, and the girls are at Hebrew school and Finn and Rose are at the Farmer’s Market and everything is different.

But it feels right—the ring back on her finger.  She doesn’t want to take it off again. 

She kisses Ben into the house and up the stairs and onto the bed, where they keep kissing until they’re sighing, until they’re gasping.  Then they dress again and go downstairs to pick up Breha and Padme.

“How was it?” Ben asks them as they clamber into the back seat of his car.

“It was fine,” Padme says, and is about to launch into what they’d talked about in their Torah class when Breha interrupts her.

“Mom—what’s that?”

“What’s what?” Rey asks, trying to keep her voice neutral, trying to keep the smile off her lips and out of her voice.

“That  _ ring _ .”

Padme gasps, then squeals, then practically shrieks, “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you getting remarried?”

“Yes,” Rey says, glancing in the rearview mirror and watching the sheer delight spreading across their faces.  

It’s delight that’s shared by everyone in the house.  Finn gives Rey the biggest hug in the world, and shakes Ben’s hand, and his eyes are more than a little bright as he wraps his arms around Rose.  Poe cooks them the nicest dinner they’ve had in a while, and Leia—

“When were you planning the ceremony?” Leia asks immediately.

“We were thinking about just going down to city hall,” Ben says.  

“No,” Leia says at once, just as Ben had predicted.

“Mom—“ Ben begins, but the girls are already whining in protest as well.

“You deserve a more formal wedding,” Leia says.

“We already had the big chuppah wedding, mom.  I mean hell, are we even technically divorced? I don’t remember getting a Get and I’m not getting  _ another _ divorce just to get remarried.”

“We were thinking about doing something nice here at the farm,” Rey says.  “Cookout, party, but just seeing a justice of the peace and getting it done with.”

“ _ Done with _ ?” Breha feigns sheer horror.  “After all the  _ work _ we put into this?  We  _ deserve _ a big chuppah wedding.”

“Yeah, but you’re going to have to learn to live with the disappointment,” Ben shrugs and wraps his arm around Rey’s waist.  

“Unless you want to plan the cookout,” Rey suggests.  She feels Ben’s hand twitch. She hadn’t run that one by him.

“I’ll take it,” Padme says at once, giving Breha a look.  

“Was that wise?” Ben whispers in her ears as the girls immediately put their heads together to start envisioning.

“Possibly not, but it was the best we were going to get,” Rey says.

“True.”  He presses his lips to her forehead.

Leia’s still standing there, looking unconvinced.

“And you get to pick my wedding dress?” Rey tries.

“I can’t be bribed like the girls,” Leia tells her.  “But I will also take what I can get.”

 

-

 

“How’s this?” Rey asks.  

She’d been afraid that Leia was going to want to outfit her in something ridiculously bridal, but so far, all of the dresses that Leia’s making her try on are simple, demure, not too showy.  

Leia cocks her head.  There’s a beaded floral design on it that Rey quite likes, but it’s a little…

“The bust doesn’t fit you right,” she says.  “I assume that’s something we could get fixed?” she adds to the attendant.

“Yes ma’am.  We’d be happy to take it in a bit.”

“I don’t love the shoulders.  They’re a bit puffy.”

“Yes,” Rey agrees, relieved.  “I think I liked the other one more?”  

Leia nods.  The other one had been an a-line dress, whose swishy skirt Rey had enjoyed, but Leia had refused to commit before trying on the last one.  

“I’ll go try that one on again,” Rey says, and Leia nods.  

Rey steps back into the dressing room and begins unzipping the dress.  “Rey?” Leia calls to her from the other side of the changing room door.

“Yes?”

“I have another request.”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t want to bring it up the other night because your friend Finn was there, and I had a feeling that he might not like it.”

Rey frowns as she hangs the dress up and plucks the a-line from its hanger.  “What is it?”

“I don’t know if there’s a whole aisle walking-down at city hall.  Maybe there isn’t. But if there is, I want to walk you.”

“But Ben’s your son,” Rey blurts out.

“I know.  The girls can walk him.  I’ve already discussed the matter with them.”

“Of course you have,” Rey mutters under her breath.  She can’t decide if it’s a blessing or a curse, how much Leia loves the girls and they love her.  By the time they’re fully grown, the pair of them will probably be nigh unstoppable. 

“Why?” Rey asks.  Because that’s the only question she can think of.  Why would Leia Organa want to give away the daughter-in-law who left rather than her own son?

“Because you don’t have parents, Rey,” Leia says as Rey zips up the a-line dress again and pushes back the curtain of the dressing room.  She’s as little bit taller than Leia, but the older woman holds her own against Rey’s gaze. “Because you were my daughter and I failed you.  I didn’t know how to be there when you needed me, and maybe if I had been, none of this…” she takes a deep breath, “Well, maybe it would be different.  Maybe it wouldn’t be, but maybe it would be.” There’s a lump in Rey’s throat, and a prickling in her eyes as she looks down at Leia. Leia is determinedly not breaking eye contact.

“That’s why you helped the girls,” Rey says slowly.  “Back in New York. That’s why you helped them.”

“Of course,” Leia says firmly and her face breaks into a watery smile.  “Breha’s a firecracker and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Padme. And it just felt like—like something was saying it was time to do something. To help. To make it right. I don’t know. It worked.” She laughs, and Rey does too.

“It did,” she agrees.  “It—thank you.” And she bends and gives Leia a hug and oh, how nice it is—to be the one being held for once.  She knows this hug, knows it perfectly, because she’s given it to her girls how many times? 

“So—will you let me?  Finn already had the chance to give you away.  I want to bring you back to my son.”

Rey wipes tears away and nods.

 

-

 

It’s all a blur, really.  A vivid blur, but a blur all the same.  

The ride down to city hall is quiet, and Rey just sits in the back seat of Ben’s car—he’d let Poe drive it, surprising all of them, so he could sit next to Rey—holding his hand the whole time.  There’s something like peace in the palm of Ben’s hand, and Rey’s there with him. 

The justice of the peace makes them say some words, makes them sign some papers, lets them kiss for the photographer that they’d hired, and then they’re back in the car and it doesn’t feel different, really—being married again.  It feels just the same as it did the day before.

Which is why, Rey knows, it’s going to last this time.  Even if there are rocks in the road, even if things don’t go the way they plan, it’s going to last.  Because she’d been happy, yesterday, and she’s happy today, and she’s fairly certain she’ll be happy tomorrow.

The girls have arranged a lovely cookout, decorated with streamers of all colors.  Poe and Finn are in charge of grilling, and Rose has connected her phone to some speakers and is playing a communal spotify playlist around it.  There are more people than Rey had imagined in her backyard, happily drinking beer and chatting—faces from the Farmer’s Market, from the girls’ school, from her life.  They eat, they drink, they laugh, and when Finn and Rose shove her and Ben into the middle of the party to a clear patch of grass they’ve deemed to be the dancing location, she twines her arms around his neck and sways to a song she’s never heard of but will always remember as she loses herself in his eyes.  

They don’t have the dance floor for long.  Luke and Leia join them a few minutes later, and Maz dances with Chewie who is about two feet taller than her.  But most importantly, the girls drift over and the four of them sort of clunk together and sway as one.

_ Family.   _

_ I have a family. _

Rey could cry with joy, but for once, her eyes are tearless.  Her heart is too full of joy even for happy tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to give a shoutout to my Talmud teacher neighborfriend with whom I had a ridiculously delightful convo about Jewish marriage and divorce to make sure I was doing it right and if Two Jews, Three Opinions is true, then The Entire Jewish People, Infinite Opinions is true. (A Get is a Jewish divorce, btw.)
> 
> Double special thanks for Jeeno talking me out of the weeds when I--with elmo-fire delight in my eyes--went down the rabbit hole about this.
> 
> Thank you all for reading this! I hope very much you enjoyed it <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/crossing_winter) and [pillowfort](http://pillowfort.io/crossingwinter)!
> 
> iOS text formatting tutorial can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722).


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